Fantastic game and what an effort by the guys. Underwood should have some fine Belgian beverages and chocolate m BBV should get some refreshing Belgian beverages sent to his apartment… on January 30 when he turns 21. I loved our heart, hustle, and clutch shooting until the last few FTs.
To weigh in on the key debate:
“Blame it on the officials”? Or
“Can’t blame it on the officials”?
Losses are never just about one thing. In this game there were 4-5 really big calls that went against us. The two most obvious:
- Kofi’s 3rd foul
- Edey mauls BBV, no foul
Those are probably a 3-5 point swing, which in an OT game clearly have an impact. So, sure, you CAN blame the officials in part — although I’m sure neither Underwood nor the team will, since that’s the part over which they have almost zero control.
There were many, many other things we could have done:
- Plummer loses his man for the back-door layup in OT2
- Didn’t adapt well to Edey’s size until into the 2nd half
- Also slow to get the offensive boards up and running. Did we have any 2nd chance points the first half?
I’ll wrap it up with my first point though — great game that has me excited for the rest of the season (especially February 10). Too bad some calls didn’t go our way, but we still had every opportunity to come out with a huge win.
- Kofi will learn from a down game (he always does)
- BBV will get a huge confidence boost (I mean, the dude guards Kofi in practice, it had to translate to a game eventually)
- Plummer knows he can still set the nets on fire
- Curbelo’s back in the mix and looked mostly good — maybe a bit out of control at times, especially that throw away on the loose ball rebound, but his best real game of the year by far.
Go Illini